David Brinkley, Elder Statesman of TV News, Dies at 82

By RICHARD SEVERO

Published: June 12, 2003

David Brinkley, whose pungent news commentaries, delivered with a mixture of wry skepticism and succinct candor, set the standard for network television for generations, died at his home in Houston late Wednesday. He was 82.

Mr. Brinkley liked to say that he had "done the news longer than anyone on earth." He summed up his own career as the subtitle of his 1995 memoir, "David Brinkley: 11 Presidents, 4 Wars, 22 Political Conventions, One Moon Landing, 3 Assassinations, 2,000 Weeks of News and Other Stuff on Television and 18 Years of Growing Up in North Carolina."

His style of writing and delivering the news &#0151; clipped sentences spoken in measured cadences and in a sardonic voice &#0151; was echoed by legions of young television commentators, imitated by comedians and mimics, and instantly recognized by generations of Americans.

His colleague Roger Mudd once observed that Mr. Brinkley "brought a level of political sophistication and literary craftsmanship and a lively sense of humor that television had never known before and that hasn't been equaled since."

Mr. Brinkley was among the last of a generation of reporters who got their basic training at newspapers and wire services, then made their name in the new medium of television. That generation included Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor.

"In my own work I have, for better or worse, always dealt or tried to deal with everything that falls under the heading of news," Mr. Brinkley wrote in his 1996 book, "Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion." "Just news. No specialty, no emphasis on this or that or anything else. Just whatever came in."

He described his commentaries as "the sauce, the spice, the flavoring to be mixed in with the wars, the medical discoveries and the economic upheavals that fill the front pages."

Mr. Brinkley achieved a number of firsts, including writing and serving as host for one of the earliest television news magazines, "David Brinkley's Journal," in the 1960's. But he was at the height of his popularity from 1956 to 1970, when NBC teamed him with Chet Huntley on a nightly news program it called "The Huntley-Brinkley Report."

Mr. Huntley, a saturninely handsome correspondent who was given to punditry, reported from New York and Mr. Brinkley held forth from Washington. The chemistry between the two newsmen, thanks largely to the controlled astringency of Mr. Brinkley's commentary, gave the broadcast a dominant place in the ratings, overtaking Mr. Cronkite's in two years.

Mr. Brinkley was not given to nostalgia. Speaking in 1996 of Mr. Huntley, who died in 1974, he said: "We weren't really close. He was always in New York, and I was always in Washington." Mr. Brinkley once explained the enormous success of "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" in this way: "I wrote pretty well, and Huntley looked good and had a great voice."

Reuven Frank, the program's producer, was credited with conceiving its famous closing lines "Good Night, Chet," "Good Night, David," "And good night for NBC News" as a gesture of warmth to offset the serious demeanors of Mr. Huntley and Mr. Brinkley and the seriousness with which they treated the nightly news. In later years, Mr. Brinkley said he thought the sign-off was "silly and inappropriate."

Some of Mr. Brinkley's finest moments involved the coverage of politics by "The Huntley-Brinkley Report," particularly its live reporting from the parties' conventions, beginning in 1956.

By 1964, the program's coverage of the Democratic convention drew a remarkable 84 percent share of the viewers. President Bill Clinton said that the Huntley-Brinkley coverage of the conventions fueled his early interest in politics. And Jeff Greenfield, the CNN news analyst, said, "David Brinkley created a whole generation of political junkies."

"The Huntley-Brinkley Report" ended with Mr. Huntley's retirement in 1970, but Mr. Brinkley remained at NBC for 11 years after his departure. He was an anchor of "Nightly News" with John Chancellor from 1976 to 1979 and for a while presided over "NBC Magazine." In the 1960's, he had also been the host of "David Brinkley's Journal." Both "Magazine" and "Journal" were critically acclaimed, although neither attracted as large a share of the television audience as critics thought they deserved.

In September 1981, Mr. Brinkley, then 61, said he was leaving NBC after 38 years "because there's nothing at NBC that I really want to do." The network had just picked Roger Mudd and Tom Brokaw as the anchors for "Nightly News" and Mr. Brinkley felt he had no role. He later called his departure "a rending, wrenching experience," that brought tears to his eyes.

He soon joined ABC News, where Roone Arledge was planning a Sunday morning program. "This Week With David Brinkley" at first featured Benjamin C. Bradlee, then the editor of The Washington Post , and Karen Elliot House, a diplomatic reporter for The Wall Street Journal. It later included George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson.

With Mr. Brinkley in charge, the program's blend of political news, commentary and sometimes quarrelsome debate established it as both a ratings leader and a trendsetter on Sunday mornings. It also inspired a wave of similar programs. Tim Russert, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," which challenged the ratings supremacy of "This Week," said of his competitor, "David Brinkley redefined Sunday morning TV."